Well, Where To From Here?

Our ruling conservative party, the inaccurately named "Liberal Party", just got their noses bloodied in a bi-election. There incumbent Liberal Party member, the former Prime Minister of Australia, quit politics after being turfed out of his job as PM by those he semi-trusted, and this resulted in the seat being up for grabs.

The conservatives have held that seat ever since Federation back in 1901 but it has now been taken by an independent candidate. 117 years of history thrown over because, largely, the conservatives have been busy bullshitting and backstabbing madly for months and the voters are pissed off with it.

The winner is an independent, openly lesbian, legally married to her female partner, woman. Boy did the conservatives get slapped hard.

I wonder if this is going to continue into the next General Election, expected to be around May 2019, or will the Liberal Party, and the coalition partners the National Party, get their act together enough to stop the seemingly inevitable slide into political obscurity?

Is there anywhere that politics isn't brutal and divisive? It's an honest question, I really don't know about countries like Norway and Denmark. I can tell that in the U.S. and Britain, we are both going through one of those times where it gets overheated.

I used to live in Salt Lake City, right in the heart of conservative Mormon country where the church has carried on a public battle against gay marriage on a national stage. And yet, somehow, the voters of Salt Lake elected a lesbian mayor who married another woman and her current popularity seems to stand at 51 for, 43 against. It's fascinating to watch it play out.

It has indeed been fascinating to watch how the whole LGBT 🏳️‍🌈 issue has been at once lauded and demonised in politics, but it has been terrible for those personally affected. Especially the young.

Regarding the OP, the analysts who "called" the election may have done so a little prematurely... while the swing against the Liberal party has been huge, it may still not be quite enough to get them out of the seat, which will give the Conservatives a massive ego boost and make their policy decisions that much harder to control - such as their decision to move our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem ... 😡

The concept (thought bubble) of moving the embassy was voiced by the Prime Minister and was aimed at gaining the Jewish vote in the bi-election, making up roughly 12% of the voters. Badly timed however as nearly all of the orthodox Jewish community would have already voted by post, as they are not permitted to go to the polling station on the sabbath.

Politicians are a whole different breed of human, and conservatives are the worst of the lot.